


Sine Qua Non

by kataurah



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Drug Addiction, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Missing Scene, Post-Season/Series 02, Romance, Smut, repost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:01:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24261007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kataurah/pseuds/kataurah
Summary: Noun [si-ne kwah-nohn]1.The essential, crucial, or indispensable ingredient without which something would beimpossible. From Latin, meaning “without which nothing.”
Relationships: Abby Griffin/Marcus Kane
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a re-post of a series of one shots I wrote throughout the airing of season 5 as a way of coping and dealing with the way certain storylines effected me personally. Hopefully it's still worth reading.

The beds in the bunker are strictly utilitarian: small, cramped, and certainly not built for two, but they've been sleeping apart for a month - longer than that really, before praimfaya - and they're starved for the warm press of each other's bodies.

It's not even about the sex, Abby thinks, as she stops walking when Marcus drops heavily onto his bunk, the weight of grief and horror tangible in his frame, though God knows she's missed that too. She's missed the deep intimacy and pleasure of his bare skin, his gentle-but-sure touch, his intensely focused kisses, and the feeling of him filling her to completion. But as she wordlessly sits down next to him, lumpy bed springs protesting only a little, and Marcus watches her remove her boots with an expression akin to wonder breaking through the tiredness on his face, she knows it's much more than that.

She's missed the simple but fulfilling feeling of being wrapped up in his strong arms, the way he curls his body completely around her in his sleep, as if he might shield her from the world. She's missed the sound of his breathing when completely at rest and content in the brief respite sleep provides, and the smell of him surrounding her, strongest when she nuzzles her face into his neck.

He's completely still, as if fearing he'll break some sort of spell by moving, that she'll change her mind and leave for a separate bed again, and Abby's heart aches a little for the loneliness they've both suffered. She both does and doesn't regret the time they've spent apart. It was necessary; she's been a mess of guilt and anger and despair since she woke to find he had saved her against her wishes. She needed the time to resent his choice whilst she came to terms with her new reality.

They'd hurt each other, as only two people who love each other deeply can. It made both betrayals cut deeper, sting more, even as they were both well aware of what the other was feeling. Marcus had lost sight of himself once, had crawled his way up towards redemption, and Abby has known the helplessness of the man she loves standing before her, telling her to let him go to his death, not to put herself at risk by trying to save him.

Logically, they understood, but the complicated emotional minefield still lying between them made it impossible to think clearly. Once they were forced to wade through it, however (when they could not escape each other) the anger was hard to hold on to. It was a mark of how far they'd come that it took them barely any time at all to find themselves back on the same page.

Abby couldn't hold it against Marcus when she knew she couldn't survive losing him either. Not now. She'd made a weak attempt to be pragmatic, to see the point that Clarke and Thelonious where making, but she does not want to imagine a reality where she left Marcus on the wrong side of the bunker door.

And neither does he.

It's as simple as that. Despite her still present guilt and self-loathing, despite being confronted with Kara, a living, breathing example of the consequences of their actions, Abby cannot blame Marcus for choosing her when she can't regret doing the same.

She feels exhausted and weak and her head is pounding; she hasn't had a dose of painkillers since lunch and she doesn't even know how many hours ago that was. Her heart flutters ominously in her chest and she can feel slight tremors, twitches beneath her skin, that she doesn't want to think about. So instead she turns to meet Marcus' soft gaze, takes in the red rims of his eyes, the dark circles underneath, and the pallor of his skin, and lifts a hand to cup his cheek. He closes his eyes at her touch, leaning into it, and heaves a shuddering sigh that borders on a sob that Abby feels in her chest.

She strokes his face, his neck, slides her fingers into his hair, and all it takes is a little pressure and they're falling into each other, holding each other tightly, desperately. They are lost in a sea of darkness, violence and grief with no end in sight anymore, and Marcus is the only thing that will keep her from drowning. So Abby clings to him, and he to her; she'll weather the storm with him.

They end up lying entwined together on the thin mattress, beneath a scratchy blanket, wrapped in each other's arms, legs tangled, so close that they are sharing every breath. Marcus' forehead is a gentle pressure against her own, the tip of his nose brushing hers, his lips tantalisingly close; it feels like an age since she's kissed him.

"I don't know how to reach her," He murmurs, voice rough and tired... defeated. Abby knows he means Octavia, and feels a fresh wave of horror rise like acid in her throat at the blood sport they'd witnessed back in the rotunda, "But I don't have an alternative to offer even if I could. Solo gonplei is fair justice in Octavia's mind. In all grounder's minds. I was an idiot to think it could be different down here."

His determination in his pursuit of peace had been one of the things that made her fall in love with him. His belief that people could be better, even when they crushed his expectations time and time again. Sometimes she'd thought his idealism naive, as much as she wanted him to be right, and Abby finds now that she is disappointed, but ultimately not all that surprised.

"No," She replies, pulling back just enough to look him in the eye, "You weren't. You just wanted to believe the best of them. And I love you for that."

His quick intake of breath would be subtle if they weren't so close to each other, and she wonders if a part of him will always be stunned, bewildered that she could love and need him as much as he does her. It breaks her heart as much as his quiet acquiescence in the face of their situation. Abby thinks maybe surviving will be worth it if she can make him believe it a little more each day.

Marcus' eyes flick down to her mouth and back up again, as if asking for permission, still worried, perhaps, that he's pushing his luck, that it's too much too soon. She appreciates that he's been respectful of her boundaries for the last month, but she hates how tentative and unsure he is right now. Abby supposes she's given him cause to be; she needs to assuage his doubts.

She barely has to move her head to close the small sliver of space between them, and just the soft, chaste press of his lips against hers sends relief flooding through her body. Marcus makes the smallest noise in his throat, a little rumble that speaks of his own relief, that opens the floodgates of her need for him, and Abby threads her fingers into the curls at the back of his neck, sipping at his mouth, coaxing him into a deeper kiss.

He opens for her, meeting her ardour with his own, and God, how she has missed this. She will _never_ tire of this. Marcus kisses her with the intensity of his whole being, his love and passion for her so strong she can feel and taste it. Abby shifts against him, hitching her leg higher where it was already wrapped over his, and can feel him getting hard. His arousal sparks the embers of her own and she wants him inside her, _now_.

She arches her hips against his and Marcus groans into their kiss and suddenly Abby is very aware of the noises they are making: each gasp for air, each smack of their lips, each creak of the bed springs. This is a communal dorm, the lights are dim but on nonetheless, and Abby is fairly sure they weren't alone in making their way to bed in a daze after the fight. Marcus seems to have followed her train of thought because he grips her thigh, stilling her movements yet holding her to him, unable to let her go, and breaks the kiss, resting his head against hers.

"I know." Abby whispers, before he can apologise or explain, and runs her fingertips through his beard again.

"I want to."

"Me too."

She tastes his shy smile when he kisses her again, slower, tenderly. A part of her wants to drag him somewhere more private, the office in medical perhaps, but she's too tired to leave this tiny, uncomfortable bed, or the warmth of Marcus' embrace. For now this is enough.

They fall silent and Abby drifts on the edge of sleep for a while, her face tucked into his neck, one arm folded between them, her hand resting over his heart. The steady beat beneath her palm is reassuring, soothing. Beyond the door of the dormitory, voices occasionally echo, footsteps and clanging armour, but the noise level is lower than it has been since praimfaya, the bunker's population falling into line under Octavia's newly regained control. She doesn't know how much time has passed when Marcus shifts and presses a kiss to her forehead and the fog of sleep clears.

"Okay?" She whispers.

There is a pause; clearly he must have thought her asleep. Then he sighs,

"I just... We keep losing people. It never ends."

She doesn't know who exactly is on his mind; Thelonious, Octavia, Clarke... countless others stretching back as far as Jake and even further than that.

Her thumb strokes back and forth where it remains on his chest, "But not each other. We're still here." It is a statement and as much of a promise as she can give in this moment. And Marcus knows it.

He tightens his hold and breathes his affirmation into her hair:

"We're still here."


	2. Chapter 2

For the first time in six years, it feels as though they are truly alone. Noise carried in the bunker, bouncing around the endless walls caging them in: inescapable. The sound of footsteps against metal panelling, someone crying in their sleep in a nearby bunk, the deafening roar of the fighting pits... all were a constant reminder of too many people crammed into too little space.

Now, Abby hears nothing but the wind in the trees outside the hut; the music of nature that most days she felt as though she'd never hear again. And the soft breathing of the man next to her.

She didn't think she'd hear that again, either.

Even though night had fallen as she and Marcus entered the village that Eligius have claimed as their own, it felt nothing like the darkness they've been living in for so long. Abby had almost forgotten what the moon looked like on a clear night, casting an ethereal glow over the world, the sight of the stars that had been a constant her entire life. She takes a deep breath before turning to Marcus; the fresh air is almost making her dizzy, lungs finally expanding as they should. The oxygen in her bloodstream is almost better than any drug could be...

It's been a chaotic whirlwind of movement and confusion since they left the bunker, and all of Abby's focus has been on Clarke. Her daughter, vibrant and beautiful, whose absence has ached like a phantom limb for these six long years. She has barely had time to think, let alone stand still and take in the reality of Marcus, solid and real and _alive_. She does so now and the memory of her complete and utter terror in thinking she was about to lose him hits her like a freight train. Fear and anger sweep through her, hot and visceral, and drive her towards him.

"NEVER," She hits him square in the chest with the flat of her palm and Marcus lets out a little _oof_ of surprise, "do that to me again!"

His face softens, and his love and tenderness is too much for her to bear; it just reminds her of everything she almost lost.

"Abby -" He reaches out to touch her face, but she steps back.

"No! I mean it, Marcus! I can't -" All of a sudden the emotions are clogging her throat again and a choked sob cuts her off. This time she lets him draw her into his arms and something inside her collapses; she thought she'd never have this again, his body, his warmth, his smell... It's all been home to her for the past six years and had it been torn away... Abby does not think she'd have survived it. "You think I can do this without you, but I _can't!"_

"I'm sorry," He whispers into her hair, one hand cradling her head, the other trailing up and down her spine, "I'm sorry... You know I didn't want to leave you. I'd never want to - I love you."

Abby clutches him tighter, turning her face into his neck to breathe him in, "Then stay with me."

Marcus presses a kiss to her forehead, "Okay..."

The panic isn't gone; the need to impress upon him just how much his death would devastate her lingers.

" _Please_ , Marcus."

She draws back just enough to take his face in her hands and force him to meet her eyes, glazed though they are with tears. He _has_ to understand. How could he still not know after all this time together? When she lost Jake, a part of her had known, even as it felt like she was dying, that she would survive. Jake had known it too; Abby remembers seeing it in his eyes the last time she looked into them. She had things to keep fighting for. She had to save Clarke and do her job and be the moral compass in a room full of people who'd abandoned their principles in the same of survival.

But this time... Marcus has been her world, her light in the oppressive darkness of the bunker, and if her light went out she would be lost.

Abby watches candlelight flicker over his face as he looks at her, and hopes he can read the desperation on hers. This face is so very dear and beautiful to her, almost more familiar to her than her own. She knows every line and crease, has memorised it's contours and the shape of his every expression, and in the firelight his skin is golden, his eyes like molten pools, regarding her with steadfast devotion and assurance.

"Okay," He says again, but this time there is more weight behind the word, and she thinks maybe she's gotten through to him. Whether he'll remember this moment the next time he tries to die for her she doesn't know, but Abby isn't done showing him just how much he scared her, how much she needs him.

She can feel the gravity of their love crashing over them and pulling them inexorably towards each other, and Marcus meets her halfway as she pulls him into a hard, desperate kiss. Abby delves in and tries to communicate with lips, tongue, teeth the depths of her love and the world-crumbling despair she felt when he was in the fighting pit. Once more she thinks:

_I could have lost this._

Marcus' arms crush her to his chest and he releases a familiar little rumbling moan into her mouth when Abby cards her fingers through his hair.

_I could have lost this._

Soft, fervent lips juxtaposed with the slight prickle of his beard, the slide of his tongue against hers as he kisses her precisely, thoroughly, the way he knows she likes to be kissed and has perfected over the years...

_I could have lost this._

Abby chases his taste, pours everything she feels, everything she _is_ into her embrace to let him know, beyond any doubt, that she could never let him go. She grips his shoulders, arches against him - against the heated length of him she can feel pressing into her lower belly - and hitches a leg over his hip. Marcus takes the hint, stooping momentarily to lift her so Abby can wrap herself around him completely; she always feels so safe and almost weightless in his arms, delights in the strength in his body, so rarely unleashed...

She thinks of the last time he must have done so, and the sound of the crowd baying for blood in the fighting pits rushes to the forefront of her mind just as Marcus, having crossed to the bed, lowers her down onto soft furs. Abby breaks the kiss on a gasping sob but clings on to Marcus when he starts to draw back at her distress.

"Abby?" He looks down at her, brow furrowed, looking like he's in pain for seeing her cry; it makes her attempts to stem the flow of tears pointless. The more love and care he shows her right now, the more she is assaulted by all the thoughts she'd tried to push away. Thoughts of another man she loves dying because of her.

Marcus is settling on the bed next to her and stroking her hair now, murmuring sweet nothings that she does not deserve, but she is too weak to do anything but soak them in. Marcus would ignore her protests anyway.

"I'm sorry," She manages to gasp, finally turning her head and forcing herself to look at him. He's still here, she tells herself, still looking at her with that aching, tender expression on his face. He gives his head a minute shake and draws a thumb through the tear tracks on her cheek,

"You have nothing to be sorry for."

"I have everything to be sorry for -"

"No." He cuts her off, "It was my choice."

"You shouldn't have had to -"

"I did. And I will again, if I have to."

"Marcus -" She wants to beg, to rail at him for not listening to her, to argue that she's not worth it, but knows it's no use.

"If it's your life or mine, Abby, I'll choose yours. Every time."

The words hit her somewhere in the solar plexus, knocking the breath from her, because it's one thing to know that Marcus Kane values her life more than anything else, has proven it time and time again, it's quite another to hear him say so out loud.

He knows that, for her, Clarke will always come first, but Abby would save him before herself too, if she could. So they are at an impasse: each of them unwilling to live without the other...

"I broke my promise." Guilt has the words bursting forth, the weight of it crushing her chest like she can't breathe when she thinks about it. "The last thing you asked of me, and... I couldn't do it. I don't know if I can."

She looks at him, and the gentle sadness, understanding and forgiveness in his eyes is devastating. She doesn't deserve it, but just like in all things, he knows her mind as she knows his.

" _We_ will." He says simply, pledging his faith in her and his support in just those two words, and Abby still doesn't know if she believes it of herself, but she pulls him closer once more and this time their kiss is slow, deep and bittersweet. She tastes years of longing for a peaceful life together that they may never have. If she's learned anything, all that they can rely on, all that they can keep, is this, here, right now.

Marcus moves over her and presses her further into the soft cushioning beneath her and, God, this is the most comfortable thing she's laid on since Polis and those brief, glorious days they spent in bed together. It feels like a dream now, a distant memory glazed with pleasure and discovery, where they were high on lust and each other. Now, Marcus' movements are practised and familiar.

Abby opens her legs so she can cradle his hips between them, savouring the weight of him on top of her, and starts tugging at the hem of his shirt. Black, she thinks absently as she rids him of it, hides the evidence of the fighting pit well, the stains of blood and sweat. The bruises on his torso, however, cannot.

Abby examines him with the eyes of a doctor but the hands of a lover, trailing over his chest, shoulders, arms, defined muscles that must be sore and aching quivering under her touch. Marcus must see the self recrimination in her eyes, because he dips down to kiss her again, desperate to reassure, to absolve. He trails hot, wet, scratchy kisses down her neck to distract her as practised fingers start undoing the buckles and straps of her jacket. It took him a while to get the hang of getting her out of it, but he is nothing if not patient and diligent.

Abby is wriggling and tugging the leather down her arms as Marcus pushes her tank up, dropping kisses to every inch of newly exposed flesh. Somehow she ends up with her top bunched over her breasts and her hands above her head tangled in her jacket and she wishes she could say this is the first time she's ended up like this.

But when Marcus' lips quirk into a smile - God, when was the last time she saw him smile like that? - and his eyes crinkle with amusement, it's worth feeling faintly ridiculous.

"I'd offer to help," He says, voice and fingers teasing as he brushes his thumbs over her nipples through her bra. It sends a tingling heat shivering beneath her skin and Abby arches into the touch with a sigh, attempts on freeing her hands abandoned. "But I quite like you like this."

She can tell; his voice has dropped to a low, rough murmur, his eyes dark and wanting. He always makes her feel so incredibly desired, and powerful in that she has this hold over him. Abby suddenly realises they have the luxury of time here, in a way they haven't since, again, Polis. They have all night, presumably. Most likely there is a guard outside their door, but Abby and Marcus are no longer strangers to making love where they run the risk of being overheard. Privacy in the bunker constituted an empty room (or supply closet) with a door that locked.

Possibly this has occurred to Marcus too, because he takes his time undressing her, kissing and nipping and caressing her like... well like a man who's narrowly escaped death, having thought he'd never again get to make love to his -

Abby's brain stutters at the feeling of Marcus' tongue running through the folds of her sex, unerringly flicking at her clit and inducing a jolt of pleasure, before moving away again, teasing. She is naked and spread beneath him, hands now free from her jacket and clutching at his thick, overgrown hair, pulling it free from where he keeps it half tied back. Marcus pulls back from between her legs just enough to flick the hair out of his eyes with a jerk of his head and frown at her in mock irritation. In response, Abby finally lets herself smile, buries her fingers in the unruly mane, pushing it out of his face, and directs him back to where she's pulsing with need.

She feels as much as hears him chuckle: delicious vibrations against her sensitive flesh as he slowly sets about taking her apart with his mouth.

God, his _mouth_.

Marcus savours doing this to Abby, every time since the first, with the same delight and dedication. The only difference between then and now are the years of knowledge and experience he has in how exactly to make her scream.

Abby wants it, _badly_ ; she can already feel the pulsing waves of heat overtaking her, the world narrowing down to Marcus' lips and tongue, licking, swirling, sucking at her swollen, throbbing clit. But even as she cants her hips eagerly and rocks against his mouth, she wants something else more.

She wants him closer. She wants him alive and pulsing inside her.

"Marcus..."

To his credit, despite the clear signs that she was enjoying herself - and she was, _dear god_ it took all her willpower to try and get him to stop - he raises himself on his elbows. He's read her tone, brow furrowed slightly in concern, but his beard is damp with her, and the sight hits her with a sharp stab of arousal, the ache so acute it's almost painful, and she needs -

"What's wrong?" Marcus - considerate, tender Marcus - misreads her frustration and thinks it's directed at him.

That will not do.

Abby sits up, yanking on his belt without preamble, then starts on his button and fly as Marcus struggles to keep up above her head. She makes short work of them and draws his hard, heavy cock out eagerly; she strokes him, the way he likes it, and hears Marcus let out a choked noise.

Abby knows and loves every inch of Marcus Kane's body, and she loves his cock... is extremely familiar with it. She loves it as she watches it swell further and twitch in her hands. There is an answering ache inside her, an emptiness: she wants Marcus Kane's cock filling her, and she needs it _now_.

Marcus is kneeling in the centre of the bed, looking thoroughly debauched and watching her with intense, dark eyes, waiting to take his cue from her. His hair has fallen free from where it was half tied back, now brushing his shoulders in thick, messy waves. Pants and underwear bunched at his thighs, his cock strains upwards towards his belly, beneath his broad, heaving chest.

She's still stroking him leisurely, kneeling just as he is, tilting her face to give him fleeting, teasing kisses, nuzzling sweetly for a moment, his laboured breathing further heating the air between them. His fingers trail lightly from the dip of her waist, to her breasts, brush over her nipples to make her breath catch and shivers travel over her skin. She wants to wrap herself around him like a vice and take him in so deep that they could never be parted again.

So she does just that.

Abby pushes lightly on Marcus' chest, an unspoken directive that he follows without question, lowering himself to sit. She quickly, efficiently - were it not for the edge of desperation in her movements, the tremble of want running through her body - rids him of the rest of his clothes, and soon as he is naked too, Abby crawls eagerly into his lap.

Marcus' strong arms encircle her, crushing her to his chest whilst one hand slides into her hair, guiding her into a passionate, messy kiss. It's as though he read her mood and, as always, is happy to follow her lead. Abby's knees bracket his hips for now, as she runs her fingers over his length, lightly scratching from his balls to tip, and delights in the full body shudder it illicits. She distracts Marcus with more kisses, more idle, indulgent caresses, so that when she lowers herself onto him in one long, smooth slide, his whole body reacts: he breaks the kiss on a gasp of her name and arches upwards to meet her, even though he has little range of motion at this angle.

He clearly intends to change that.

With a growl, as Abby rolls her hips teasingly, revelling in her favourite feeling, the solid, hot length of him encased in her own heat, he bends his knees, balancing her and bracing himself in one motion, and thrusts upwards, startling moans from them both. This is where they belong, where they are alive and safe and joined together.

Marcus is looking directly into her eyes, so close she can see every varying shade of brown in his irises, the black of his lust-blown pupils, as he cups her ass in one hand and thrusts again. And again. She rises and he pulls her down, slamming their hips together, knowing the right angle to hit that spot deep inside that has Abby crying out, pure sensation and pleasure swelling... spreading. Struggling to hold his gaze, Abby captures his mouth in a messy, breathless kiss, wrapping herself around him until not a sliver of space exists between them. Her hands are buried in his hair, arms raised around his neck, crushing her breasts to his chest, and she stops their movement momentarily to hitch her legs around his waist, crossing her ankles. All she can do is writhe in his lap as Marcus grinds into her, but she just wants to hold him, keep him as close as humanly possible as they climb that peak together. Their bodies know this rhythm, this dance: it's like coming home.

She turns her face into his neck, nuzzling and breathing him in, dropping kisses to every patch of skin she can reach as Marcus pants her name into her ear, over and over, like a prayer, clutching her just as tightly. Their hips move faster, frantic, chasing release; Abby can feel the wave cresting, Marcus real and solid in her arms, burying himself inside her ready to burst, and the thought hits once more just before she falls:

_I could have lost this..._

Her cry is a sob as pleasure crashes over her, white hot and overwhelming as the knot of emotion in her chest pours out of her as well. All of her fear, all of her love, all of her _guilt_ , it tangles and merges with the relief and sheer rightness of coming with Marcus inside her. So Abby cries into his neck as the man she loves sets her body alight, and smiles through her tears when she feels his own orgasm hit, every part of him shuddering against her.

They're both sweaty and breathless, but neither move to break their embrace as they come down together. Abby feels his chest heaving, his heart pounding against hers, and has the kind of ridiculous, overly romantic thought that she'd only ever have post-coitally: that they're trying to reach each other through the barriers of skin, muscle and bone.

That they beat in recognition of each other. _For_ each other.


	3. Chapter 3

Marcus is asleep. He's slouched forward over the desk where he unwillingly rested his head an hour or so ago, telling himself, she's sure, that he'd only close his eyes for a moment. Abby, curled in on herself too, at her own desk behind him, but due to the cramps twisting and spasming in her abdomen, has long given up trying to focus on the data spread before her, and instead keeps her eyes trained on the man she loves, as though perhaps she can draw strength from just the sight of him. Just his presence...

It's not enough.

If she's being honest - and in this state, sweating and shaking, skin clammy, crawling, confining, she can only be brutally honest - nothing he could do would be enough. Love alone cannot fix her; if it could, there would have been no need for the pills in the first place, such is the depth and force of Marcus' love for her. He would worship and adore and heal her with kisses, or failing that, he would take the pain for her, if he could.

_If, if, if..._

He can't. But he would want to be awake right now, she knows, so she doesn't have to face this alone.

Abby is torn. She wants to wake him, wants the small comfort of his arms around her - maybe he can hold her together as her body tries to shake itself apart? - the quiet, reassuring rumble of his voice, always so soft, so intimate when _she's_ the one he's speaking to. She wants him to tell her that she can do this, because every flutter of her pulse right now, every irregular breath, is screaming that she _can't, can't, can't._ He would want to be awake, and yet she can't bring herself to reach out for him.

She doesn't want him to see her like this. He's seen it all before, but that just makes it worse every time: that she's ended up here _again_ , that she wasn't strong enough to stay clean. _Weak_ , whispers the trembling of her limbs, the rolling of her stomach, the drilling pain behind her eyes. _Selfish, pathetic... shame_. She is ashamed. It floods her entire being, until she's reduced to only that and the cravings, caught in an endless cycle of desperation and self-hatred.

And it's all made so much worse when she's offered the choice.

Abby doesn't hear Diyoza come in, nor her approaching footsteps, lost as she is in the betrayal of her mind and body. The other woman is just suddenly _there_ , watching her silently, her gaze keen, considering, taking in her state dispassionately. Diyoza's eyes flicker briefly to Marcus, her expression unchanging, unreadable, and Abby feels the sudden urge to shield him, protectiveness rising through the fog of withdrawal in the face of this woman seeing him unguarded and vulnerable.

Her attention turns back to Abby and she raises an eyebrow, which could mean any number of things. Diyoza, Abby has noticed, seems to be capable of saying a lot with very few words or very little movement; the woman carries threat and gravitas with experience and subtlety, not like Octavia, for whom everything must be a spectacle. Abby has witnessed the impressive control she has over the prisoners she's lead back to Earth with her and wonders how exactly she earned that complicit obedience.

The words start to take shape on her lips, " _What do you want?"_ but, with a single movement, Diyoza cuts them off before they can be released. She reaches into her pocket, then slowly, deliberately, draws out a painfully familiar plastic pill bottle - _full_ \- and places it on the desk, within Abby's reach.

Her heart thuds in her chest at the sight of it, an answering pulse pounding mercilessly in her head, hard enough that she imagines Diyoza can hear it, can see the palpitations in her jugular. Her first instinct - second, really, after the knee-jerk urge to snatch the pills that has her clenching her hands into fists, nails digging into her sweaty palms - is to glance nervously towards Marcus, who sleeps on unaware. It feels as though she's already breaking her promise to him, because Abby _knows_ in this moment, with a certainty that has her heart sinking, that she will not wake him. She will not risk being caught.

Diyoza has missed nothing when Abby quickly returns her gaze to the pill bottle (her salvation, her downfall) fully aware of her inability to look away from it for long. When she speaks it is quiet, deceivingly soft:

"It's your call," A pause and a calculated glance down to the pills, small and innocuous-looking between them, but holding all the power. Abby _hates_ it, but feels herself twitch anyway, her breath catch, at the thought of Diyoza taking them away again. "Take them, or don't. As long as you do your job." She moves closer, into Abby's personal space, though she refuses to back down; Diyoza may hold all the cards but Abby will be damned if she'll let the other woman intimidate her. "This is a show of good faith. You give me what I need, and I'll continue to do the same. And he," She nods towards Marcus, "stays alive." She smiles, only a slight inclination of the lips, but Abby could almost believe she means it, if it weren't for her thinly veiled disdain towards the messiness, the _weakness_ of her addiction.

Diyoza thinks her weak, Abby knows. At this point, she doubts she can argue.

"I'll leave you to it." She turns and leaves as quietly as she came in.

Abby wishes she could say she fought herself. She wishes she waged an internal war against the pure, devastating _need_ tearing through her, with bravery, integrity, dignity... All those things that she has apparently lost, because it's all she can do to wait until Diyoza has shut the door behind her.

Shaking fingers wrap around slim plastic, cylindrical, nestled into her palm with familiarity. She rises to stand on unsteady legs, and crosses the room slowly, silently to the small closet that functions as a bathroom. _Barely able to support herself,_ whispers the self-loathing voice inside her; this is what she is reduced to without the pills, this is what she is trying to avoid and refuses to subject Marcus to. And it will only get so much worse... Diyoza's only condition, her only demand, is that Abby do her job. As long as she makes herself useful, compliant, she can keep Marcus alive and with her. She cannot live without him, and she cannot be useful without the pills.

This is what she tells herself. This is what she _knows_ , after six years of struggling that has only gotten harder, has worn down her resolve and sense of self.

She tries to put the illusion of space between them as she goes back on her promise to him; she will not take them in his presence if she can help it, whilst he sleeps on oblivious and so close next to her. Even though she's done it before... There is a mirror in the bathroom, small, cracked and dusty, but Abby turns away from it, unwilling to even chance catching a glimpse of her own reflection.

She dry swallows them with profound relief, welcoming the bitterness coating the back of her tongue, trying not to think of how she keeps wounding the man she loves, how she keeps disappointing him again and again, and how she does not deserve his steadfast devotion. She swallows it all down with the pills and resolves her mind to the task set before her.

Abby wishes there was even a choice, a moments hesitation... But she'd be lying to herself again.


	4. Chapter 4

She makes it through the first day without anyone noticing. Or rather, if they do see a difference in her, nobody says anything. A petty part of her wishes for some acknowledgement of this small achievement, but she's barely surpassed the foot of the mountain. She has so much further to climb that she can't even see the peak; it's hidden and clouded so much she's not even sure it exists.

The headache always comes first, tension building at the base of her skull, then small tremors, a feeling of weakness in her limbs. But Abby can deal with it, has _learnt_ to deal with it over the years of fighting this same battle, during times of short supply or when the fear of getting caught won out. Marcus has made himself scarce since delivering his ultimatum, out of guilt or just sheer overwhelming defeat, she isn't sure which. She flips erratically between wanting to rage at him for the unfairness of making her choose and thinking she can't really blame him for giving up on her.

His well of patience and love will never run dry, but he's made it clear that she's hurting him and he's helpless to do anything about it.

She doesn't want to. God, the _last_ thing Abby wants is to hurt him, because she does love him, so much that the thought of life without him is unbearable. If she didn't love him this wouldn't be a choice. The part of her that loves Marcus Kane exists beyond the physical and chemical responses of her body; the soul of Abby Griffin is who she longs to return to.

If she didn't love him, she thinks, huddled on the floor of the small water closet, hunched over the toilet bowl, they wouldn't be stuck in this constant cycle of pain: hers is his and his is hers. It's why she's doing this alone now. If she fails herself she's failing him too, and she'll hurt him all over again. For every time she's said she'd quit, and really, _truly_ meant it, she has fallen back to depending on the pills and watched the sadness extinguish the hope in Marcus' eyes.

Yes, Abby survived the first day, but then the insomnia crept in and she lay awake with nothing but the cold sweat on the surface of her skin and the craving beneath. She lay awake without his familiar warmth and weight next to her, without the comfort of his breathing or his arms around her for the first time since they arrived in the village, and she couldn't tell what hurt more: the withdrawal or his absence.

Well into the second day now and her stomach muscles are twisted into cramps from dry heaving; her hair is a matted tangle and her clothes have been soaked through and dried with sweat several times over. She shed the leather jacket when it became too uncomfortable but now she feels cold and bare. Her heart rate flutters and violent shivers wrack her frame like a shockwave, and her headache has spread to a painful tingling pressure, like pins and needles behind her eyes. She probably would have given in already if she had the strength to get herself up off the floor, but she's far too weak. It's good that no one else is here - most of all Marcus, even though she aches for him with every fibre of her being - because Abby would cry and beg and lose all sense of shame...

"What are you doing?" Even though she's not facing him, Abby closes her eyes as if that could block out the fact that John Murphy is standing in the doorway, looking down at her, probably in every sense. "If you're trying to cold turkey this bitch on your own, I can't even begin to tell you how much of a bad idea that is."

The doctor in Abby knows this; she's already getting heart palpitations, and she could easily pass out here, from dehydration or low blood sugar... Seizures aren't out of the realm of possibility. It's dangerous for her to be doing this alone.

"John..." Her voice is weak, hoarse, her throat painful and dry. She doesn't even know what she can possibly say. She finally looks up at him and whatever disdainful or apathetic expression she expected on his face, that's not what she finds.

His eyes are wide with some emotion that Abby is too disoriented to identify, brows pinched, lips pressed into a firm line.

"Don't be an idiot," He says, and his voice sounds strained, and somewhere in the fog of Abby's brain she _knows_ there's a reason... "If you're serious about this, if you want to get clean and _stay_ clean, you need help. And you _have_ people who want to help you." He looks at her imploringly and his voice cracks, "Let them."

Only once has she seen him so sincere, before: begging for Emori's life. She remembers then, in a moment of awful clarity, that John's own mother drank herself to death, and his father... his father stole medicine and got floated for it. Abby knows then that any argument she has for not telling Marcus what she's doing, any request for John to just let her be, will fall on stubbornly deaf ears.

She's already so, so tired of being too afraid or too proud to admit that she needs Marcus, that she cannot do this without him.

So she whispers, "Okay," instead of nodding her pounding head, and Murphy audibly sighs in relief.

"Smart choice." He tries forcing casualness, but it falls short. "I'm going to get Kane, just... Christ, just don't move and don't fucking die in the next five minutes, okay?"

She hears him break into a run as he leaves, closing her eyes as another wave of nausea rolls through her, desperately trying to swallow it down. She fails and heaves again, her stomach clenching but having nothing left to bring up. Tears escape and leave salty tracks down skin that already feels tacky with sweat, and Abby leans fully against the toilet, head coming to rest on her arms when it feels like her neck can no longer support it. Perhaps she does slip out of consciousness for a moment, because awareness returns to her in the form of Marcus, panicked and cradling her face in his hands. She hadn't heard him come in, but he's panting like he's just full out ran through the village to her; suddenly there's a vice squeezing around her heart and fresh tears spring to her eyes.

"Abby?" His voice, though tight and trembling, washes over her and seems to coax her body into relaxing for a moment. His hands are warm, his touch like coming home. "Please... can you hear me?"

How out of it must she look? She blinks to focus and says his name and he heaves a sigh that borders on a sob, his eyes shining.

"Oh, Abby..." He breathes, "Why didn't you -?" He breaks off, looking pained, "Love, I told you... You'd never have to do this alone."

Abby breaks then, squeezing her eyes shut as cries start to erupt out of her, because he's _here_ , and he's gentle, patient and forgiving, and he loves her profoundly, _painfully_... And it's everything she wants and nothing that she deserves and it's all too much...

... Has anyone ever loved her like this?

Perhaps the thought should carry with it traces of guilt or doubt, but it just feels like a simple, vital truth, and it startles her into clarity. She holds onto this thought like a rock in the storm of her mind, and wills her arms, finally, to move and hold onto Marcus with her body. He shuffles closer and helps her turn, achingly slowly and gently, like she's made of glass, so as not to jostle her and set off the nausea again. He sits back against the wall and then she's reclining against him, lying between his bent legs, with his arms surrounding her and his chest, solid and steady, beneath her cheek.

Abby breathes, breathes him in and lets his presence envelope her; the feeling of his body against hers is the most natural thing in the world. It grounds her and centres her, even as her muscles continue to spasm and shiver beyond her control. She lays her arms over his, reaching for his hands and entwining their fingers. Closing her eyes again - though the tears have not stopped they are silent now - she tilts her head back against his shoulder and feels him nuzzle at her temple, pressing a kiss there. She feels disgusting and can't imagine she smells at all pleasant, but he doesn't seem to care, kissing her sweaty forehead and stroking her hair back from where it's stuck to her skin. A full body shudder sweeps through her and the pain in her head is a burning cold that makes her choke out a sob. She squeezes the hand she still has wrapped in hers, holding on tightly  
as his other trails down her cheek, her neck, and rubs the sore, tense muscles in her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Marcus murmurs, feather soft in her ear. "I want you to do this for you, not because I forced you. Not out of fear of losing me. You'll never -" He makes a sharp gasping noise and Abby thinks maybe he's crying too. Her chest feels like it's cracking open. "I want this to be what _you_ want."

And she does. She realises, now that Marcus is here, not lost to her, that her desire to be free of the pills is innate, and... not quite independent of him entirely, because their lives and hearts are a tangled web at this point, inextricable, but something she understands she needs for herself.

Because the crux of the matter, the _question_ , is this: who does she want to be? Does she want to be Abby Griffin, or just a fading shade of her? A hollow echo? She has to believe she hasn't lost herself yet.

But he also needs to know:

"I want you. I _love_ you." It's the strongest her voice has sounded in... well, since they were yelling at each other a couple days ago.

He releases a small sigh, and she wonders if it's relief; it hurts her to think it might be. "I know."

"Do you?" God, he _should_ , shouldn't he? After everything, after all this time... But Marcus doubts his own worth so easily, always has done.

Carefully, Abby shifts onto her side so she can look up at him, and for a moment they simply gaze at one another, drinking in features that they each know to the tiniest detail, that they've spent the last six years waking and falling asleep to. She takes in the tired circles beneath his eyes, the worry lines, and his slightest frown, a crease between his brows, as if he's trying to decipher her meaning. She lifts a hand to his cheek and watches his eyes flutter shut briefly, his quick intake of breath, and marvels that she can still have this effect on him. They hold so much devastating power over each other it's as frightening as it is heady.

She strokes the soft bristles of his beard in familiar motions as he opens his eyes again and she's caught in them.

"I _know_ ," He repeats, intently. "And I love you. So tell me this is what _you_ want?"

This is a moment of peace, but Abby knows it won't last, and this process, this feeling of her own body torturing her for her decisions, will drag on for at least a week, if not two. There will times when she will rage and scream at him, when she will fight him and hate him for not letting her surrender. And he will let her, just as he's let her before, because this is what he can give her when he can't take the pain for her.

It will be like an exorcism, she thinks grimly, and the demon will grow more and more desperate. She will have to tear herself apart first in order to put herself back together again. But (right now, at least) she thinks it has to be worth it.

Besides - she traces the shape of Marcus' face with her fingers, long, _long_ since memorised, and thinks of the other face that never fades: that of her long lost daughter who has returned to her, shining, beautiful and alive, in her darkness all too briefly before they were separated again - she has things worth fighting for.

She swallows again, her throat like sandpaper, "I want to feel like... me again, Marcus, I - I haven't felt like me in..." The tears return; _forever_ , she thinks, it feels like forever.

He shushes her, hands flitting everywhere, bestowing touches meant to soothe and comfort. "I know," He says, "And I know you might not believe it, but I still see you, Abby. I always have."

She loves him so much in this moment, for his everlasting faith in her, and it doesn't help stem the flow of tears. She badly wants to kiss him, but given that she's spent hours throwing up intermittently, she doubts he'd appreciate it. She tells him so and he chuckles and it might be the best thing she's ever heard. "We'll have time for that."

She can't help but think, a little desperately, panic never far away, like a sensitive trigger at the back of her mind, that there are no guarantees.

"There better be." She mutters instead, turning her face into his neck to better feel the gentle rumble of his quiet laughter.

She won't sleep, she won't be that lucky, but her body grants her a brief reprieve from the violence of her withdrawal. So she breathes and shivers and takes the tiniest sips of cooling water that has suddenly appeared - _John_ , she thinks gratefully, it must be - along with a full bowl and a washcloth that Marcus runs over her skin until she almost feels human.

"We'll get through this, too." He says.


	5. Chapter 5

"I feel like it's inevitable," She whispers one night and four years into what he still desperately hopes isn't a life sentence of hell.

She says it into his neck, like she's confessing her sins, hiding her face so she does not have to look at him in her weakness. They're pressed together in their small regulation bunk, limbs tangled and holding on tight. They could sleep in separate beds - they were both allocated one to begin with after all, and there are more and more going spare these days - and sometimes they start out that way, but one will always end up drifting to the other's bed before the night is through. They can't sleep apart anymore, out of fear or a desperation to cling to that which keeps them going, that which is most precious, Marcus doesn't know. Both, probably.

And of course they take this time to soak in each other's touch: soft caresses and reverent kisses under the blanket of darkness, where they can almost pretend they are anywhere else. They could be back on the Ark, or in Arkadia, the home they built together. They could be in that cosy room in Polis that was _theirs_ for a short time, when all the candles had burnt out and night had fallen and they were utterly spent from making love all evening. Marcus tries to convince himself that all darkness is the same, but it just isn't. It's oppressive and suffocating and so much more frightening down here.

Even when Abby's on the pills, Marcus cannot deny her the comfort and reassurance of his touch anymore than he can deny himself. She's been off them for a week this time, and though her body has, for the most part, passed through the most violent stages of withdrawal, she's still getting headaches, still suffering from insomnia.

"What is?" He murmurs into her hair, though he has a fair guess as to what she's talking about.

"I can get clean, but sooner or later..." Her voice is tremulous, thick with self-loathing that has never disappeared since that conversation where she asked him to let her die. That life in the bunker has only made worse. "I wonder, what's the point? It's too hard, Marcus, there's nothing -" A broken sob escapes, and it's like a knife to his heart. He feels tears prickle behind his closed eyelids. "There's no hope." It's barely a breath, as though she might soften the words, but it makes the blow no less devastating.

_Hope_. That is what they used to be for each other. When one fell under the weight of grief or guilt, of leadership and impossible decisions, the other would catch them, lift them up. This is how Abby saved him. This is how she became the light in his darkness. Marcus has been trying to be the same for her, these four long years, but he knows he's failing. He's knows it's not enough, and he thinks maybe it's unfair of him, to place all of his hope and faith in her. Maybe he's only helping to crush her by continuing to believe in her when she no longer thinks she's worthy. When she has no self-belief left.

"I know I'm not the person you fell in love with anymore." It's as though she's followed his thoughts and taken a wrong turn into this awful conclusion that has him practically recoiling in shock, trying to look her in the eye. He hates, _hates_ , how resigned and sad she sounds.

"That's not true!" His protest is loud in the silence of the dorm. He doesn't know how many other people are in here (and frankly right now he doesn't care) but he reigns himself in and his voice takes on a pleading edge instead. His hands slide up her body to cup her face, her features indistinct before him in the dark. "I haven't stopped - I'll never -" His words stutter, falling over themselves in his haste to reassure. "I _love_ you, Abby. I will _always_ love you."

"You don't know that. How could you?"

_The hell he doesn't_ , he wants to say. All Marcus is certain of anymore is his love for her. It burns within him, as bright and fiery and consuming as it ever was. It simultaneously wounds and heals him, lifts him up and weighs him down. Neither of them are the people they once were; nobody stays the same, and Marcus still wants to watch Abby grow and change (for better or worse, in sickness and in health) until they're old and grey together. She is, simply put, the love of his life.

But he knows it's hard for her to accept any of that right now. She's in a cage within a cage; they're all trapped in this bunker whilst she is trapped in her own mind.

"I know." He insists, shifting up and putting his weight on his elbow to hover over her. His eyes are adjusting to the dark and he can see the pinch in her brow now, her mouth pressed into a line of misery, trying to keep her tears silent. "And I know what you're doing. I won't let you push me away." He forces down the instinct to be firm in order to get through to her and keeps his tone gentle, wiping away the wetness on her cheeks. "You can't tell me what I should be feeling, Abby. Just like I can't tell you."

She doesn't reply, but presses his hand to her cheek with her own, and reaches up to touch his face with her other hand. Her eyes and fingers skim over his face as though memorising his features, tracing them as she has many times before. Every time she does this it brings a lump to Marcus' throat, makes his chest ache like it's being cleaved down the middle. Wordlessly she tells him how treasured he is as the pads of her fingers flutter over his cheeks, his brow, the slope of his nose, the creases around his eyes and the bristles of his beard. Her touch is like butterfly wings that he remembers glowing in the forest around where the hundred first landed on earth.

Her thumb brushes his lips, lingers, and Marcus presses a kiss into her skin. He hears her breath hitch, with a sob or a sigh, he isn't sure which. The hand he has propped above her head runs repetitively through her hair and he finally feels a little of the tension ease out of her frame. He lowers his mouth to her ear, dropping a kiss to the sensitive skin just below it. In response, Abby tangles her fingers into the overgrown waves of his hair, long enough now that it's starting to curl around his neck.

"I know you feel like you've lost yourself," He whispers, "I know that feeling never really went away after praimfaya. But you're still the Abby Griffin I love." He hears a small pained whimper that she tries to suppress, feels her swallow down more as he kisses her throat now, her jaw, her cheek. "You still love so deeply. You're still kind, and strong, and brave..." He punctuates each statement with a kiss, tasting salt as fresh tears escape. "And impossibly _stubborn_." At this she breathes a tiny, involuntary laugh and it feels like a gift. He cherishes it, folds it into his heart for safe keeping, because she immediately becomes somber again.

"I don't feel like I'm those things. I just feel... empty." He knew that, he knows it's not about him, but it hurts to hear nonetheless. "I know I love you. And I need you," Her arms clutch at him around his neck, "But there's just this fog over everything and all I can think about is escaping it, and -" Her voices cracks once more, his heart along with it, and Marcus lowers his forehead to hers.

"I know."

He kisses her then, deeply, fervently, as though through this alone he could fix everything that's wrong and bring her back to life, and for a little while it works. He can feel it when she starts to lose herself in the feel of him, when the bittersweetness of their kiss mixes with familiar desire.

And when she arches against him and licks into his mouth, Marcus slides a hand down her body and into her underwear and feels how Abby's body still recognises and reacts to his body. She's slick and sensitive and his fingers know what to do: when and where to touch her slowly, gently, or rub harder, faster, slip inside her and find that spot that has her gasping, muffled, against his mouth.

He brings her to the brink twice, teasing her, hoping that if he builds her up and she comes hard enough it might quiet her mind and let her sleep, until Abby makes a little frustrated noise and covers his hand with her own, directing his touch to where she needs him most. She's so beautiful and so utterly _herself_ in chasing her pleasure that it steals his breath away entirely, and Marcus forgets about keeping quiet, breaking their kiss to watch her. He's rock hard and straining in his threadbare underwear, but he ignores it and focuses on Abby; this is about her.

" _Marcussss_..." She hisses his name and opens her eyes where they were previously screwed shut to meet his gaze, restless hands at his shoulders, clutching and releasing his t shirt, and alternating between soft, high panting and biting her lip to stop herself from making too much noise.

Marcus wishes she didn't have to.

He withdraws his fingers, spreading her wetness to her swollen clit and speeds up, rubbing hard and relentless, until he feels Abby's hips buck, her whole body tenses, and he kisses her again, messily, swallowing her cry as her orgasm crashes over her.

He holds on tightly, as she does to him, feeling her ride out the waves of pleasure rolling through her body, and burying his face in her neck until she gradually stills and they have both shed tears.

Marcus settles back down against her side and she looks at him sleepily, raw and vulnerable and like he's the sun they haven't seen in four years. She starts to trail a hand down his body to where his erection is still pressed into her belly, but he stops her.

"Sleep, love."

One last gentle kiss and she's closing her eyes, and when her breathing finally begins to even out and she looks as peaceful as she possibly can these days, Marcus lets himself break just a little. He curls his body around hers, tears falling into her hair and bites his lip hard enough that he tastes blood. After a moment, when he feels able to speak again, he whispers to her.

"I'll remind you of who you are, everyday, for as long as it takes, until you believe it too."

* * *

She makes it almost two months this time, before he hears the telltale rattle of the pill bottle again.


	6. Chapter 6

His blood is still on her shaking hands.

Oh, they hadn't shaken as she'd worked on his wounds - her medical instincts had overridden the fear and panic that had begun to flood her system before they could paralyse her. _Doctor Griffin_ had slipped into the driver's seat, operating with calm confidence and pushing terrified, heartbroken Abby to the back of her mind. It had never been more crucial to not let her emotions overwhelm and get the better of her. It could not be the man she loved she was treating, trying desperately to save, and yet that was the very reason why failure was _not_ an option.

And she'd had to do it alone.

Abby didn't know where Clarke was - she still doesn't - and Diyoza, Marcus had said, was locked up and closely guarded. Stopping the bleeding and stitching up his wounds had been her priority, before assessing possible internal damage (the scalpel blade had been small and thin, the stabs shallow; she thinks now that chances are good the damage was limited, no major organs perforated.) By the time she considered radioing for help, she was inserting IV lines for blood, fluids and painkillers, and was struck by the thought that McCreary would most likely consider trying to keep Marcus alive a waste of resources.

The urge had been there, watching the morphine drip through the catheter and into his veins. It offered escape from the pain and fear that was gradually creeping back to the forefront of her mind as the adrenaline waned and she felt herself begin to crash. Abby had steeled herself and looked at his face instead: no, they'd both come too far, through hell itself, for either of them to surrender now.

She can't bring herself to wash her hands, can't bring herself to move from her place by his side or tear her eyes away for even a second, because it would be a second wasted. A second where he could slip away from her and the only thing she'll have left of him is his blood coating her skin.

Abby imagines it seeping beneath the surface, into her pores, her body absorbing part of his in an effort to cling onto his very being at a cellular level. So she sits, cold and trembling as the shock sets in, obsessively monitoring and matching his every breath with one of her own; she tells herself that as long as she keeps breathing so will he, and visa versa.

Beneath her palm, his bare chest rises and falls, and the quiet beep of his pulse is finally steady. His skin is clammy and pale from blood loss, but warm nonetheless. ( _Still warm, still alive_.) The fresh bandages are pristine white around his neck and stomach, concealing punctured and torn flesh. More pain on top of everything else he has suffered, more scars...

Abby can feel a sob building deep within her own chest, from her very soul, trying to claw its way free. She's filled with guilt and helplessness now that there is nothing else to do but wait. There's no use feeling betrayed by Vinson, Diyoza had been right all along, but Abby had been too stoned out of her mind to see it, too intent on getting what she needed by any means necessary. She knows she's not responsible for his actions, yet somehow can't help but feel guilty by association.

And then there are Marcus' last words (no, not _last_ , it cannot be the last thing he says to her...) She'd been carrying this terrible burden for four years, the weight of it crushing her, thinking he still didn't know. That everything between them was tainted by what she had done. But Marcus had known all along and had forgiven and loved her anyway.

The sob does break free then, ringing out harsh and broken in the otherwise quiet room. It's almost bizarre to think that a war is raging beyond these walls, hundreds of people that Abby had lived with for six years being gunned down. Jackson... Oh god, _Jackson_. He wouldn't be on the front lines, but Marcus had said McCreary wouldn't accept surrender... that he would wipe them out.

There aren't many innocent people left in this world - "innocent" is relative when it comes to the Dark Year: they all ate, they all committed the same atrocity, but she and Octavia gave them no other choice - but Abby would count Eric Jackson among them. He is still good and kind and does everything he can to keep people alive rather than seek to kill them. And the thought of his death has her doubling over in pain and crying into the worn cushion of the stretcher bed that Marcus lies on. That she herself lay on five days ago.

It tears her apart, but so does the knowledge that the alternative is Wonkru marching victorious through Shadow Valley, rendering everything she's done to save Marcus' life pointless because Octavia would inevitably come for him. He'd been right, earlier, when he'd said that life had become a series of choices, one after another, where there were no good options left. There is always guilt and pain, no matter what they choose, and all they can do is decide which is the least�worst, which is the most bearable.

That's what life has become. That's what _they_ have become.

Abby curls her fingers into the unresponsive hand that rests close to her face and turns her head to look up at Marcus. When the insomnia was at its worst down in the bunker, she liked to watch him sleep. It had been the only time he was at peace, unburdened by the worry and pain she was putting him through, and Abby could pretend they were back in Polis, before the world ended again, high on love and unable to get enough of each other. Before the weight of their decisions had worn them down and she'd become unrecognisable to herself.

But Marcus has loved her through it all; he loves all of her broken pieces, just as she loves his. Their jagged, brittle edges are still perfectly aligned, forever creating something stronger when fitted together. Abby thinks of all the ways they fit together and wonders, as she has so often of late, if she could survive losing him.

The pain the thought brings is indescribable: it is havoc and devastation, a violent grief, like praimfaya tearing her world apart, and yet it is also a still, cold numbness, a loss leaving her so bereft and hollow that she would slowly freeze from the inside out.

Abby's breath catches and she shivers; she aches for Marcus with her entire body and soul and she needs to be closer.

She rises on unsteady legs - God knows when it was she last ate or drank something - and carefully, so as not to jostle him or the IV lines he's hooked up to, manages to slide onto what little space is afforded by the small, hospital bed, and curls her body along Marcus' side. She's probably being stupid, will more than likely end up falling off if she's not careful, but she doesn't care; they grew used to sharing a single mattress down in the bunker. Nor does she care about what people might think when someone eventually comes looking for them.

She rests her head on his shoulder and presses a kiss into his skin whilst her hand returns to its spot over his heart, her leg wrapping loosely around his. She matches their breathing again, in and out, and ignores the bandage at his throat, right in front of her eyes, in favour of the face she loves so dearly.

He's pale, looks tired and drawn ( _haunted_ , she thinks) but sleeps on undisturbed. There is no furrow in his brow; his lips aren't pressed into a thin line of concern or anger. After a moment Abby's hand drifts to lightly trace and smooth over worry lines, then stroke his face, his hair, just to touch him. She'd do this down in the bunker, wrapped up in his arms, darkness on all sides, when she felt overwhelmed and afraid. Often overwhelmed at his love for her, and afraid that it would gradually destroy him as she destroyed herself. It almost did... It still could.

_No_. He will survive this. Just as she survived detox. And then they will heal together. She has to believe this or else... well, she doesn't know if she'll be able to leave this bed. Which she doesn't plan on anytime soon as exhaustion and the familiarity of his body next to hers has Abby sinking down, down into herself, limbs heavy and bones weary.

It is nearing dawn when she lets herself surrender to a fitful sleep, Marcus' heartbeat faint but steady against her ear, and it can't be more than a couple of hours later that she is easily woken by movement from the man next to her. The sun streams in through the dusty windows, illuminating the scene that she didn't care to examine too closely during the night, focused as she was on Marcus and only Marcus. The evidence of a struggle is there, in the knocked over table, the upset tray of instruments, a bloodied scalpel abandoned on an even more bloodstained floor. The splatter of red trickles a pathway to the bed where they lie, dried now to a dark rusty colour. And of course Vinson, her victim, still in the same place and position he died in.

Abby hasn't bothered trying to move him, she knows there's no way she could. She hasn't gone near him and so his pale, bloodshot eyes remain open, unseeing. Perhaps it should bother her, but she's been around enough dead bodies to last a lifetime and she can't bring herself to feel regret.

The rage and fear and horror that burned through her when she pulled the trigger to Vinson's collar remains in small vestiges, enough to remind her that there was no choice. She took a life to save the man she loves, and she'd do it again.

Beside her Marcus stirs again, trying to turn his head and wincing when the movement pulls at his neck wound. A small moan escapes him and Abby pushes herself up to lean over him, stroking his face, his beard, in the way he always finds soothing.

"Marcus?" His eyelids flutter, "Honey, can you hear me?"

"Abby..." He sighs, and fresh tears spring to her eyes simply at the sound of her name falling from his lips, something she was afraid she'd never hear again.

Then he opens his eyes, blinking lazily and capturing her in dark brown warmth, and Abby starts to cry with sheer relief and exhaustion.

"Oh god, Marcus. Thank _god_." He instinctively starts to turn towards her, reaching for her, still confused and groggy, and gasps, frowning down at the thick gauze covering his abdomen. "No, no, don't move." She sniffs, trying to control herself and him, gently but firmly pushing on his shoulder until he's lying down again.

"What -?" He tries, breathes deeply in an effort to dispel the thick haze she knows is clouding his mind. "What's wrong? Are you alright?"

Abby chokes out a laugh that is half a sob: _of course_ that would be the first thing he'd ask.

"I'm okay now," She says thickly, restless hands flitting over him, touching to reassure them both, "Do you remember what happened?"

He searches her face for a moment, for what she doesn't know, then nods and regrets it immediately. Slowly, as though his limbs weigh far more than they should, he raises his arm to gingerly finger the bandage at the side of his neck.

"Vinson." Abby nods and takes his wandering hand in one of hers, murmuring a quiet "don't" in reprimand. Again, he looks at her searchingly, "Did he...? Did you...?"

She can see the drugs pulling him back under, "I stopped him."

The implication is clear, and she can see that Marcus understands despite the fact that he's struggling to stay awake. Somehow he looks grateful and pained at the same time; she knows it's because he hates the thought of her taking a life for him, even that of the monster that tried to kill him, horrifically, painfully. As if she had any other choice, she thinks again, but she remembers feeling the same way after the fighting pit, hating what he'd been forced to do for her.

He says nothing, but manages to reach up and cup her face. It's such a small gesture, but he conveys silent love and acceptance even whilst they're both still so broken and tired. She presses his hand to her cheek, kisses his palm and feels that distance between them closing, mending, though. And that's a start.


End file.
